What you are looking at is a direct translation of the amendments to the Counter-Espionage Law of the Peoples' Republic of China (2023 Edition), which took effect today. Its intentionally broad language gives PRC officials the ability to detain, arrest, and charge any individuals who are engaged in the collection of business intelligence as part of a due diligence investigation within China, on espionage grounds. We cannot stress how serious this new law is; it can result in foreign nationals working in China receiving extremely long prison sentences for making routine inquiries which Chinese authorities decide impact their definition of National Security.
Compliance officers from outside China, whose duties include conducting due diligence or enhanced due diligence upon any Chinese nationals, companies, government agencies, or any other entity located in or operating within the PRC can no longer safely enter the country, without assuming the risk of being arrested for spying, even though their inquiries seek open-source information not related to the Western definition of what constitutes National Security information.
Please consider this a direct warning to all compliance officers to refrain from even considering entering the PRC to conduct due diligence; this especially includes native Chinese speakers holding passports from North American and EU jurisdictions, as they may find themselves targeted for that reason. Foreign companies have been closing their offices inside China that conduct due diligence, and we trust that their staff have now all left the country, or closed down any operation that remotely appears to be collecting business intelligence.
If this isn't a reason for foreign businessmen to leave China, I don't know what else it would take to convince them to depart forthwith.
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